On February 26, 2025, police in Santa Fe found Gene Hackman, his wife Betsy Arakawa and one of their dogs dead in their home. Investigators later said Arakawa had died of hantavirus, a rare disease carried by rodents, about a week before Hackman, who had advanced Alzheimer’s disease and heart disease and may not have understood she was gone. It was the most widely covered death of a month that also took two great voices of the 1970s.
1. Tony Roberts (aged 85)
Tony Roberts was Woody Allen’s best friend on screen in Annie Hall and several other Allen films, and a Broadway regular for half a century. He died of lung cancer.
2. Rick Buckler (February 17, aged 69)
Rick Buckler played drums in The Jam with Paul Weller and Bruce Foxton, from “In the City” in 1977 to the band’s split in 1982, a run that included four UK number one singles.
3. Gene Hackman (around February 18, aged 95)
Gene Hackman won Oscars for The French Connection and Unforgiven and played Lex Luthor in Superman, the coach in Hoosiers and the father in The Royal Tenenbaums. He retired from acting in 2004 and wrote novels instead. Authorities believed he died about a week after his wife.
4. Chris Jasper (February 23, aged 73)
Chris Jasper played keyboards in the Isley Brothers through their 1970s run and later co-wrote “Caravan of Love” as part of Isley-Jasper-Isley. His family announced his death.
5. Roberta Flack (February 24, aged 88)
Roberta Flack won the Grammy for Record of the Year two years running, for “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and “Killing Me Softly with His Song”, the first artist to do it; only U2 and Billie Eilish have done it since. She had stopped singing after being diagnosed with ALS.
6. Henry Kelly (February 25, aged 78)
Henry Kelly presented the BBC quiz Going for Gold and co-hosted Game for a Laugh, and later spent years as a Classic FM presenter.
7. Michelle Trachtenberg (February 26, aged 39)
Michelle Trachtenberg played Harriet in Harriet the Spy, Buffy’s sister Dawn in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Georgina Sparks in Gossip Girl. She was found at her New York apartment. The medical examiner later said she died of complications of diabetes.
8. Chris Hughes (aged 77)
Chris Hughes was a former train driver who became one of the best-known faces of British quiz television as one of the original Eggheads, and he won Mastermind in 1983.
9. Brian Murphy (aged 92)
Brian Murphy was George Roper, the henpecked husband in Man About the House and George and Mildred, and later Alvin in Last of the Summer Wine.
10. David Johansen (February 28, aged 75)
David Johansen sang for the New York Dolls, whose 1973 debut was one of the records punk was built on, and later reinvented himself as Buster Poindexter, singing “Hot Hot Hot”. He was the last surviving member of the band’s classic line-up.
Hackman and Flack were two of the defining names of 1970s American culture, one in film and one in music, and they died less than a week apart.